the village’s elegy
i attend many funerals
and truth is, i can’t help.
i see mine in every scent
in the crowd. when a mother
talks about her daughter, i see
mine, too. that month i couldn’t
paint all my selves together.
one piece was loud. another,
heavy. that one, silent. the brush,
selfish. like marriages laying on the week.
when she describes her memory, i think
for once about what the doctor told me.
i see ants on the map surrounding the
mirror of my closet. one cancer on the
peak of their mouth. not that the dress
for that funeral was empty. i listen to the mother.
to the daughter through her cough. and truth is,
i see the daughter. i see myself.
A sonnet is fighting absolution
you can say it loudly—the sky is late
tonight and stars are worrying.
someone called a dentist and
he forgot to wake the mirror up while
my speculum was recusing itself,
standing proud like my ghosted secret
in my haunted soul.
maybe I should
hide in the confessional with my dad’s
murderer even if it’s controversial.
maybe I should beg my expiry to act
like a professional griot, holding
his bibliographical kora.
but, it’s not fair.
a word can kill a regiment,
a comma can erase a squadron,
a dot can drive you out of a blood’s field
and then that rhyme will wash your sins.
that’s why poetry is vital.
Josiane Kouagheu is a journalist and writer from Cameroon. Her poems have appeared in Frontier Poetry, The Kalahari Review, Brittle Paper, African Writer Magazine and elsewhere. LinkedIn: Josiane Kouagheu, Twitter: @josianekouagheu, Facebook / Instagram: Josiane Kouagheu